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What if you missed out on hiring the Steve Jobs of the catering industry? Jobs had no real engineering experience to bring to the table. He had a small am

What if you missed out on hiring the Steve Jobs of the catering industry? Jobs had no real engineering experience to bring to the table. He had a small amount of education from Reed College, but it was in a completely unrelated major, and he had dropped out early. But he had a way with words, seemed to have a passion for technology, and probably lied about having worked at Hewlett-Packard. "I figured, this guy's gotta be cheap, man. He really doesn't have much skills at all," Alcorn remembers. "So I figured I'd hire him."

sdan 7y ago
There's a difference between lying about one position and making entire linkedin profiles that you set up. One's mischievous and one's deception.
- jaspax 7y ago
  No, they're both deception, and they're both strong negative signals. Think of it this way. Out of the 1000 people who will outright lie about having worked some place, 999 of them are sociopaths or grifters who will do serious harm to your company if you hire them. The last one is Steve Jobs. We only hear about the last one, usually, but if you're hiring someone and you know that they've lied about their experience, don't take that chance.
  - GFischer 7y ago
    And Jobs WAS a sociopath. He was also a ruthless genius.
- speedplane 7y ago
  > There's a difference between lying about one position and making entire linkedin profiles that you set up. One's mischievous and one's deception. As a human, you can only bring a few things to the table: inherited wealth, demand for your talents, and credibility. The first is a gamble, the second is impossible to control given the market, your credibility is the only thing you can really guide. Be honest, be trustworthy. It takes forever to build, but in the end, it's how people make judgment calls about everything else.
lonelappde 7y ago
Indentation on HN is for code, not blockquotes. Steve Jobs isn't a particularly good employee, anyway. He's a good CEO.

sdan 7y ago

There's a difference between lying about one position and making entire linkedin profiles that you set up. One's mischievous and one's deception.

jaspax 7y ago
No, they're both deception, and they're both strong negative signals. Think of it this way. Out of the 1000 people who will outright lie about having worked some place, 999 of them are sociopaths or grifters who will do serious harm to your company if you hire them. The last one is Steve Jobs. We only hear about the last one, usually, but if you're hiring someone and you know that they've lied about their experience, don't take that chance.
- GFischer 7y ago
  And Jobs WAS a sociopath. He was also a ruthless genius.
speedplane 7y ago
> There's a difference between lying about one position and making entire linkedin profiles that you set up. One's mischievous and one's deception. As a human, you can only bring a few things to the table: inherited wealth, demand for your talents, and credibility. The first is a gamble, the second is impossible to control given the market, your credibility is the only thing you can really guide. Be honest, be trustworthy. It takes forever to build, but in the end, it's how people make judgment calls about everything else.

lonelappde 7y ago

Indentation on HN is for code, not blockquotes. Steve Jobs isn't a particularly good employee, anyway. He's a good CEO.